Herpes Virus of the eye

[catspaw66]

Was Silly's vet able to do anything before he/she removed her eye?

She gave Silly an antibiotic injection, some liquid antibiotics and Gentamicin eye drops.  Her eye was bad enough that it didn't help much. It was a little weepy and just suddenly flared into a major problem.

 

[feralvr]

Thanks Feralvr!  Mega vibes for your little girl too!! Okay, I looked, & the drops I was thinking of were actually Ciprofloxacin, & Idoxuridine. When the Neo Poly didn't work last time, (Feb.) The Dr. put him on both of these, at the same time. The Idoxuridine were the ones that needed to be kept in the 'fridge. I still didn't see great results after all of that, so I finally
ordered the Eye See Clearly from Allergicpet.com. (Holistic eye drops). Thankfully, his eye's aren't to bad, no drainage or anything, just the "3rd eye" looking a little pink, when he has a "flair up."
He hasn't had a flair up sense Febuary (thank goodness!), So, I have only used the holistic drops here, & there. I don't want to stress him out putting eye drops in, if I don't really need to, sense stress
causes flair ups.

I totally forgot about the Eye See Clearly drops - I think Stephanietx recommended them to me awhile back :doh3: That is something I have yet to try :bigthumb: :cross: Thanks for mentioning that !!!!!

 

[quiltingkate]

What is the product "Revolution" from Lucky Vitamins?  Looks like it's something for body builders?  Off label use for herpes virus in the eye?  I am sure interested in something that might help my little guy.

Has anyone had success with immune system stimulants?  My kitty is pretty healthy other than the watery eye so I am hoping a strong immune system might help him ward off future flare-ups.  Actually, he has gorgeous big eyes with just a bit of watery discharge so we're relatively lucky...

He tested positive for FVR so we know it's there, lurking, and we know what we're dealing with.

Looking forward to your input.

 

[angels mommy]

Hi QuiltingKate, & welcome to TCS!   I am not familiar w/ the product you mentioned. Most of us here just give our kitties Lysine supplements as everyday maintenance.  250 mg. 2xs/day. Once in breakfast & once in dinner. If your kitty is having a current break out, (watery eyes, sneezing,etc..) you can double that dose for a few weeks, until it subsides. If it hasn't gotten under control, he may need eye drops. The best thing to do is ask your vet. She will be able to tell you if he needs eye drops or not. If he hasn't had them before, then he may need them to get things under control just to start with. My cat needed eye drops off & on for the first 2 yrs. I had him. Then, you can continue the lysine at the same time for a speedy recovery.  There are also some good eye drops we mentioned in the above post. 

Good luck, & keep us posted.

 

[silverpersian]

QuiltingKate, I tried Polyprenyl immunostimulant. We haven't had a single outbreak since a three-week course of Polyprenyl in August. We used to have about one per month. We have kept our cat on lysine and lactoferrin, which he has been on since before the Polyprenyl. I am very happy with the results. It cost $150 (if I remember correctly), which is a lot, but I would have spent a lot more than that on vet visits and medications associated with the outbreaks by now.

 

[myrnafaye]

My cats both have ocular herpes.  It is very common in cats, especially shelter cats, and it is passed through the saliva (mutual grooming); or in sneezing.  Typically one of them will have a slightly watery eye.   My Obi had a bad bout about  a year ago, and my (former) vet referred me to a specialist, a veterinary otthalmologist.  She stained the eye, and looked at it with a special instument in a dark room, and said Obi had herpes.  I had to order special drops - a type of acyclovir - from a lab  in North Carolina; they were very pricey, about $75/bottle, and he was on 2 bottles for the course of the flare up.  He had a weepy eye - no discharge - but it was partially closed and the sclera was red.  I also gave him L-Lysine.  The flare up subsided, and the eye is better.  He has not had a flare up since.  Sometimes Mittens has a runny eye for a day or so, and I dont do anything special other than wipe it gently with a cotton ball soaked in warm water, or sometimes a genteal drop.  If you can get to a specialist, I recommend it.  

 

[quiltingkate]

Thank you for this advice.  The lactoferrin seems to be an easy thing to do - how much do you give, how often and do you just add to his food?   I assume you are buying it from your local health food store?  Any recommendations on brands?

We adopted this little guy 2 months ago - he was 3 1/2 months old and already had been treated for URI since he was 6 weeks old (he had been at the shelter since he was 2 weeks old.)  Once I got him to my vet we were able to make some headway (first few weeks I had to use the shelter's vet...)  Anyway, currently anti-viral eyedrops are working well on the eye discharge and the nose drops are working well on the runny nose, and the l-lysine seems to have helped a lot,too... I will keep him on the l-lysine forever - based on what I see on this wonderful website - and the vet suggested the nose drops twice weekly as a prophylactic.  

I will talk to my vet about the polyprenyl.  The closest vet that carries it is 4 hours away, but my vet is so happy with the results he's getting with the l-lysine, I think he'd be interested in polyprenyl... 

Thanks for the advice, I'm happy to hear that you've had good results!  There's hope!

 

[betsygee]

I used it on one of my kitties and the lactoferrin helped her a lot, 250 mg a day, half in the morning and half at night.  Here's a good thread on lactoferrin and lysine:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/267703/stubborn-herpes-infection-add-lactoferrin-in-addition-to-lysine.  

Here's the first post of that thread--note the part about lactoferrin at the bottom.

In researching proactive methods of slowing down the progression of Chumley's FIV, the FIVtherapy site had quite a bit of information up on the anti-viral properties of Lactoferrin. There are a number of both in vitro and clinical studies of Bovine Lactoferrin for various things: one of them is Feline Herpes Virus.

In fact, one was published just this year. http://www.medwelljournals.com/abstract/?doi=javaa.2013.181.185

From the study:

Viral shedding in oculo-conjunctival samples gradually decreased in almost all cats. These data suggest that the association lysine-lactoferrin could be a first choice in FHV-1 infected cats for reducing clinical signs and viral shedding.

Here's an in vitro study from 2003: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12950656

I've been giving Billy various doses of L-lysine to get him to stop sneezing. We got his runny eyes under control with lysine, but he remained very sneezey.

When I found the information on Lactoferrin in regards to herpes (I didn't have the 2013 study at the time, but human study papers), I added Bovine Lactoferrin to his supplement regimen.

I didn't track how long it took to take effect. 

 I just noticed one day that he rarely sneezes any longer. I asked Gary if he'd heard Bill sneezing much, and upon reflection, he said "I can't remember the last time I heard him sneeze." 

I confirmed with Jarrow that their lactoferrin is Bovine Lactoferrin. This is important, because lactoferrin is also made from transgenically modified rice that produce human lactoferrin.

I am giving my cats 250mg daily, split into two doses, 125mg in the morning and 125mg in the evening. The Jarrow lactoferrin comes in 250mg capsules: easy to open and sprinkle on half a capsule and mix into food. I did not buy the 2013 paper to see the doses used for either lysine or lactoferrin.

It is palatable to all of my cats, some of whom are very picky (it has so many benefits, I give it to all of them now).

 

[quiltingkate]

Thank you for your input.  I will pop by the health food store tomorrow and see what they have for lactoferrin.  We have a really good store here so I'm sure they will have some - will try for Jarrow since it's worked for others.  

This is such a good forum; I never imagined adopting a cat with a chronic illness, but with the info I'm getting here, I think we can keep him healthy...

Thanks again, will post about our progress.

 

[silverpersian]

Same here - 250 mg of Jarrow lactoferrin per day, split into two doses and sprinkled on food. I buy it from amazon, where it keeps getting more and more expensive. None of our local stores carry it. I use the NOW lysine powder, 500 mg per day. I also give him a probiotic (5B per day) and a supplement called plaque-off (half scoop per day)  that is supposed to keep his gums healthy. It's just seaweed, but they have carried out clinical studies in Sweden that proved its effectiveness in doing what it says - keeping plaque off.

I open the lactoferrin and probiotic capsules and measure out the lysine and plaque-off. I usually mix up enough for a few weeks, then measure out what I need (about an eighth of a teaspoon) at mealtime. It's easier than keeping track of the half-capsules and measuring out so many different things four times a day.

Best of luck. I couldn't be happier with the Polyprenyl. Just one word of caution: we first tried it when our kitty was very little - maybe eight months? He was having an outbreak at the time and was on antibiotics as well. He did not tolerate the Polyprenyl. He vomited even the tiniest dose. We waited a few months and tried again and everything was fine.

 

[silverpersian]

I read the 2013 study. The orally administered dose was 200 mg of lysine and 60 mg of lactoferrin per 2 kg of body weight , twice a day for one week, then once a day for three weeks.

For my 9 lb. cat, assuming that the second phase can be considered the maintenance dose, that translates to 400 mg of lysine and 120 mg of lactoferrin per day. Interesting. I plan to cut the lactoferrin in half and see if anything changes. I currently give him 250 mg per day, which is twice the amount they tried in the study.

 

[quiltingkate]

I ordered the lactoferrin today through Amazon, it will take a couple of weeks to get here... (my local health food store had lactoferrin but it was a protein shake for body builders - just what I need, a muscular cat sneezing on me when I'm trying to sleep!  Besides, it was strawberry flavoured, pretty sure that wasn't going to be a favourite with my four-legged buddy...)      

Thanks for the advice!

 

[betsygee]

 
I read the 2013 study. The orally administered dose was 200 mg of lysine and 60 mg of lactoferrin per 2 kg of body weight , twice a day for one week, then once a day for three weeks.

For my 9 lb. cat, assuming that the second phase can be considered the maintenance dose, that translates to 400 mg of lysine and 120 mg of lactoferrin per day. Interesting. I plan to cut the lactoferrin in half and see if anything changes. I currently give him 250 mg per day, which is twice the amount they tried in the study.

In my case, my cat Molly had other health issues and I needed her to eat as much as possible.  She didn't seem to like the lysine (I read somewhere here that it can be salty tasting) and didn't eat as much when I added it to her food, so I ended up using more lactoferrin and almost no lysine.  It helped her tremendously.  They're all so different....